In Focus: A World Without People
For a number of reasons, natural and human, people have recently evacuated or otherwise abandoned a number of places around the world — large and small, old and new. Gathering images of deserted areas into a single photo essay, one can get a sense of what the world might look like if humans were to vanish from the planet altogether. Collected here are recent scenes from nuclear-exclusion zones, blighted urban neighborhoods, towns where residents left to escape violence, unsold developments built during the real estate boom, ghost towns, and more.
See more. [Images: AP, Reuters]
![theatlantic:
Adulthood, Delayed: What Has the Recession Done to Millennials?
Generations are social constructs. There is no chemical or biological difference between Gen-Xers and Millennials, but we talk about them as if they were different species. That Gen-Xers grew up “independent” and Millennials grew up “entitled” aren’t anthropological observations. Rather, they’re marginally useful stereotypes. If it’s true that members of a certain age group have commonalities that they don’t fully share with older or younger groups, this isn’t the result of generational determinism. It’s just circumstance.
The circumstances surrounding the Millennial generation are particularly strange. Many came of age in the longest economic expansion of the 20th century and graduated into the worst recession since the 1930s. The abrupt contraction of opportunity has left a mark. Unemployment among 18- to 24-year-olds was 16% in 2011, twice as high as the national average. Median earnings fell more for the young than any other cohort, and college debt, most of which is held by 20-somethings, is at an all-time high.
With education comes opportunity. That’s the deal, as this generation understood it. Now, they’re the highest-educated generation in American history, and they’ve graduated into … this.
When adults wonder what’s the matter with the Millennial generation that has increasingly chosen to live with their parents and put off marriage and homeownership, the first thing to say is that they’re using the word “chosen” wrong. Nobody chose this. The economy chose for them.
Read more. [Image: Scarleth White/Flickr]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lze4daMFNq1qcokc4o1_500.png)
Adulthood, Delayed: What Has the Recession Done to Millennials?
Generations are social constructs. There is no chemical or biological difference between Gen-Xers and Millennials, but we talk about them as if they were different species. That Gen-Xers grew up “independent” and Millennials grew up “entitled” aren’t anthropological observations. Rather, they’re marginally useful stereotypes. If it’s true that members of a certain age group have commonalities that they don’t fully share with older or younger groups, this isn’t the result of generational determinism. It’s just circumstance.
The circumstances surrounding the Millennial generation are particularly strange. Many came of age in the longest economic expansion of the 20th century and graduated into the worst recession since the 1930s. The abrupt contraction of opportunity has left a mark. Unemployment among 18- to 24-year-olds was 16% in 2011, twice as high as the national average. Median earnings fell more for the young than any other cohort, and college debt, most of which is held by 20-somethings, is at an all-time high.
With education comes opportunity. That’s the deal, as this generation understood it. Now, they’re the highest-educated generation in American history, and they’ve graduated into … this.
When adults wonder what’s the matter with the Millennial generation that has increasingly chosen to live with their parents and put off marriage and homeownership, the first thing to say is that they’re using the word “chosen” wrong. Nobody chose this. The economy chose for them.
Read more. [Image: Scarleth White/Flickr]
(via npr)
![theatlantic: Are America’s Prison Towns Doomed?
For decades, the trade-off of becoming known as a “prison town” and being associated with incarceration has been a worthwhile trade-off for municipalities in financial straits. And states in need of a place to put their growing inmate populations during the height of the War on Drugs were willing to pay good money for it.
This is where publicly-traded, private prison companies such as Corrections Corporation of America and GEO, formerly known as Wackenhut, — what Eric Schlosser dubbed the “prison industrial complex” — stepped in. They offered cheaper and more efficient prison management than state-run systems because they could use non-union employees at lower wages with less training.
But much like the real estate market crash of the last ten years, the belief that the incarceration market was recession-proof and could only rise is being proved wrong. Declining crime rates are leaving more prisons empty. There isn’t enough crime to keep the prison industry afloat as it currently stands.
To save money, more states are moving their prisoners back to state-run facilities when space is available. Without prisoners, the private companies managing the facilities are leaving. And the small towns who bet on an ever-growing incarceration rate are left further in debt with few sources of capital. Read more.
[Image: Reuters]
A compelling, difficult story from The Atlantic Cities about incarceration and struggling American towns. Here’s a question for y’all: Can we reconcile our satisfaction about falling crime rates with concern for those losing their livelihoods?](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lz4vimbwEd1qcokc4o1_500.jpg)
theatlantic: Are America’s Prison Towns Doomed?
For decades, the trade-off of becoming known as a “prison town” and being associated with incarceration has been a worthwhile trade-off for municipalities in financial straits. And states in need of a place to put their growing inmate populations during the height of the War on Drugs were willing to pay good money for it.
This is where publicly-traded, private prison companies such as Corrections Corporation of America and GEO, formerly known as Wackenhut, — what Eric Schlosser dubbed the “prison industrial complex” — stepped in. They offered cheaper and more efficient prison management than state-run systems because they could use non-union employees at lower wages with less training.
But much like the real estate market crash of the last ten years, the belief that the incarceration market was recession-proof and could only rise is being proved wrong. Declining crime rates are leaving more prisons empty. There isn’t enough crime to keep the prison industry afloat as it currently stands.
To save money, more states are moving their prisoners back to state-run facilities when space is available. Without prisoners, the private companies managing the facilities are leaving. And the small towns who bet on an ever-growing incarceration rate are left further in debt with few sources of capital. Read more.
[Image: Reuters]
A compelling, difficult story from The Atlantic Cities about incarceration and struggling American towns. Here’s a question for y’all: Can we reconcile our satisfaction about falling crime rates with concern for those losing their livelihoods?
The damage of prolonged unemployment goes deeper than dollars. Skills deteriorate, anxiety and depression set in, and sometimes an outlook changes forever. Megan McArdle argues that the true cost of unemployment is even worse than we thought.
(via theatlantic)
The earthquake damage to the National Cathedral is more extensive than originally thought.
(via theatlantic:
Stay tuned: we’ll have exclusive video later this morning.
theatlantic:The Lost Dream of Trippy ’70s Space Colonies
No longer can we begin to imagine that we’d build space colonies in outer space. Serious intellectuals and writers couldn’t even be bothered to handwavingly dismiss such an enterprise. Hell, in two days, we won’t even have a Shuttle to get to the International Space Station, the tiny, shriveled, boring version of the wild future a few influential dreamers once thought they could build.
(via bbook)
The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World: St Patrick’s Day Edition
In honor of Saint Patrick’s Day, The Atlantic and Atlas Obscura are pleased to bring you an assortment of Irish esoterica that goes far beyond the usual visions of cozy inns and green fields (and green beer?). Featured in this edition of “Seven Wonders of the World”:
- A behemoth, cannon-like telescope operated by generations of Irish earls
- A perfectly preserved ancient monastery on a rocky island in the Atlantic Ocean
- An Irish church where you can shake hands with 800-year-old mummies
- A mysterious, corkscrew-shaped barn
- Obelisks and stone pineapples in the Irish countryside
- An ancient druidic passage tomb that keeps perfect time
- An eccentric garden of Indian sculptures
See more at The Atlantic
Subway cars go to a watery grave, come back as reefs?
For more than a decade, the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority has treated the Atlantic as its very own graveyard, tossing thousands of old subway cars off a barge to rust away on the ocean floor. An environmental crime? Hardly. The program creates habitats for marine life from Georgia to Jersey and gives New York’s aging subway cars a vibrant (and free!) retirement home.
Now, New York photographer Stephen Mallon has captured the MTA’s artificial reef program in a gobstopping collection of stills that look like what you’d get if you combined an Ed Burtynsky series with the freeze frames of The Matrix and the train porn of The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (without the agro hostage situation). We’ve got lots of details on the program and a selection of Mallon’s photographs above.
Check out the full slideshow over at Co. Design.
(Source: fastcompany, via mikehudack)
The inside scoop on what all of those vehicles are in The Presidential Motorcade (click through for a larger image).
Marc Ambinder takes an exclusive look into the inner workings of the Secret Service.
via inothernews:theatlantic:
